Lauren Esh

Education 111

Professor Lown

11/30/2017

Guidance Article Reflection

To learn more about guidance and strategies for teachers I read through chapter six of our

textbook, and two articles I received during class. While there was a ton of information given in

the textbook I chose a few sections in which I felt I learned the most. To help teacher prevent

challenging behaviors from occur it is nice to have strategies or approaches they can use, the first

I would like to talk about is the Teaching Pyramid Model.

The Teaching Pyramid Model promotes social competence and preventing challenging

behaviors in young children. The pyramid consists of four levels, 1) positive relationships with

children, 2) high-quality supportive environments, 3) social and emotional teaching strategies

and the last tier is, 4) intensive individualized interventions (Bredekamp,174). The bottom level

is the foundation of positive relationships on which everything else depends. The models show

that if a teacher effectively used these supports then child will learn social competence. Their

positive behaviors will increase and their challenging behaviors will slowly go away. Research

shows that 4% of children require the more intensive level of interventions. Building positive

relations between a teacher and a child is also very important.

Teachers who have positive relationships with children are significantly more likely to

influence their behavior because children pay more attention to responsive, caring adults. Caring

relationships also help children develop positive self-concept, confidence, and a sense of safety,

these all lead to a decreased in the challenging behaviors (Bredekamp,181). And effective
strategies to building relationships with children can be done through banking time. Banking

time is when you spend 5 to 15 minutes with an individual child, helping and building your

relationships. The last example I want to talk about from the book is rules and effective way of

making rules.

Children thrive in predictable physical and temporal environments, they also thrive when

the expectations for behavior are clear and predictable (Bredekamp, 185). One of the most

important things about rules is that teachers need to discuss them and create them with the

students and most importantly early in the school year. When creating rules make it fun and

interesting for the children, get them engaged, but do it during quiet or calm time. The most

effective approach is to positivity state what the child is supposed to be doing rather than

focusing on what they arent allowed or supposed to do. After reading the textbook I also read

two articles we were given in class, Positive Guidance, Powerful Interactions Make a

Difference and The Building Blocks of Positive Behavior.

In the article Positive Guidance, Powerful Interactions Make a Difference, a school in

Hawaii gives many tips and suggestions while planning for positive guidance. They use three

steps of a Powerful Interaction to help build strong relationships with children and their families,

the three steps are Be Present, Connect and Extend Learning. I learned through reading this

article that Powerful Interactions are a teacher intentionally connects with a child to help grow

and build that childs learning. This school want to also plan for positive guidance but still

having a powerful interactions approach in mind, one way to do so is through teamwork.

Working together as faculty helps be a good example for the students as well as makes things run

more smoothing in the school. Working as a team helps these staff members feel more energized

to guide the children in positive ways each day. Another thing that sets the tone for positive
guidance is daily arrival time. When the day starts off good for a child it tends to just keep

getting better, here are three things to help address positive guidance. The first is offer specific

activates in learning centers. This school lists activities that students and their parent can do

together. The second thing is to write interactive morning messages. This message is for families

to read to their children as the child points to each worked. Part of the message relates to positive

guidance. And lastly creating a library encourages powerful interactions at home. The children

are allowed to bring books from home and leave them at school and also can take books home

from the class library. I also would like to talk about how having smooth transitions relate to

guidance. This article lists three things that helps make transitions smooth, humor, puppets and

music. Keeping it funny while switching to a new activity can be a lot more fun for children.

This school also uses puppets while on the carpet for when a child is talking, and last music.

Having music playing can help have a much more positive climate in the room. After reading

this article I understood how this school in Hawaii plans for positive guidance and powerful

interactions to make the classroom for positive and prevent challenging behaviors from

occurring.

In the second article I read, The Building Blocks of Positive Behavior I learned what

PBIS is and how beneficial it can be for a classroom and school. PBIS stands for Positive

Behavioral interventions and Supports. The program was developed at the University of Oregon

and has been shown to work for all grade levels. While reading this article I found out that

schools who use PBIS have many positive outcomes such as, reduced office referrals, improved

attendance and school engagement, improved academic achieving and reduced dropout rate,

these are just a few examples. Research shows that in 2005 44% of teachers and 39% of highly

qualified teachers quit their jobs because of students behavior. PBIS is an approach to behavior
management and the outset and reinforcement throughout the school year. I really enjoy the

cool tools that Abbott Middle school uses. Cool Tools are lesson plans that model what the

expected behavior should look like rather than what a child shouldnt be doing. I think this is a

good reinforce for children and helps them understand correct behaviors better. A big part of

PBIS is acknowledging and rewarding students for appropriate behavior. Some schools do this

through pizza parties, raffles, schools supply and much more. I believe rewarding children is

very beneficial because it helps them see what they are doing is good. Consequences are very

important, too, but rewarding a child helps build their self-confidence and can encourage them to

keep doing better. After doing research it is clear that all three of these sources are similar and

different. In the book and in the article Positive Guidance, Powerful Interactions Make a

Difference they both really focus on building relationships with the students. These two sources

also talk about how smooth transitions can help with behavior guidance in the classroom.

Something that was different with the The Building Blocks of Positive Behavior article was

that they talked about rewarding children and how beneficial that can be to the children and

classroom as a whole. I think that the rewarding and rule making would be the most beneficial

for students. Making rules with the teacher helps the students feel valued and important in their

classroom. I feel if they students help make the rules they will be more likely to implement them

because they were part of it. I feel that rewarding children would make them feel very good

about themselves and help guide them to keep doing better. In my classroom, I would like to

have rewards for a pizza party or pajama day, that way it involves all the students. I also like

having a fun and interactive transition time. If the students are having fun with it then they are

much more engaged and more interested in what I am asking them to do. Having these things in

my classroom it would allow for my students to be fully involved in what we are doing each day.
I think it would add more positive behavior and attitudes in the room and my students would

truly want to be here to learn. Lastly, I would like to add banking time into my classroom. I

think both me as the teacher and the students could benefit from this. For me as the teacher

taking 5 to 15 minutes each week to sit down with a student would be a great learning and

observation time for me. Just with that little amount of time I can learn more about the child and

how they are growing in school and if they are struggling in any areas. As for the child, it would

help them feel more comfortable around me and feel more open. In my classroom, I want to feel

as a second parents for my students. I want them to feel valued and feel able to talk to me as their

teacher. I feel after reading from these three sources Ive learned a lot; however, I would like to

learn more about how consequences can also help children guidance. I also would like to learn

more about how parents can get involved with children behavior inside the home. Children learn

a lot from school but they learn a ton outside of school and parents can continue to be an

example for their childs behavior.

 Bibliography

Bredekamp, Sue. Effective Practices in Early Childhood Education. New Yok: Pearson

Education,Inc, 2017. Print

The Building Blocks Of Positive Behavior, Teaching Tolerance, 2008

Positive Guidance, Powerful Interactions Make a Difference, Teaching Young Children. Vol

6, No 2.